Blue Fin w a 50hp???

January 9th, 2011, 07:27 PM

I'm currently looking to buy a 16 foot blue fin from a guy. He doesnt know the model says he thinks its a late 70's. It is a side consel boat. He states the cg plate says the boats rated for a 55hp I have a good running 50hp evinrude. I want to ski and tube behind it hoping to get maybe 30mph. Will this boat and engine combo do that for me?? Anyone with this set up have any advice for me??

You can tube behind practically anything. Skiing will be more difficult depending on the size of the skiier and the number of people on board. With 3 adults aboard, I've pulled up 150-200 lb persons with a 1958 Lonestar aluminum 14' boat equipped with a 1984 Johnson 60 hp. The trim and tilt made a huge difference. If the skiier was inexperienced, they drank a lot of water getting up!

My grandfather had a 1958 Richland (16'?) aluminum boat with a 1959 Johnson 50 hp (4 cylinders back in those days). It could handle all of us as kids and even the adults, too.

Unless they know what they are doing, someone trying to get up on one ski will really struggle, even if there are only two people aboard. Even with the above rigs, we found it easier to get up on two and just ditch one ski.

Comment

I have a 16' blue fin side console and the 50 merc from the same era '84 or '85 will top out at about 28 mph with 2-3 people in the boat even with the tilt and trim optimized ...the plate on mine says it can handle up to 90hp